United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
UNHCR Regional Representative in Thailand
3rd Floor, United Nations Building, Rajdamnern Nok Avenue, 10200 Bangkok, Thailand
Telephone: 66 2 288 1858
FAX: 66 2 280 0555
Email: thaba@unhcr.org, TANV@unhcr.org
CC: Director’s Office: Email: usane@unhcr.org
Department of International Protection
E-mail: hqpr02@unhcr.org
UNHCR –
I am writing you today as a private citizen due to my concern over the issue of Pakistan Christian refugees who have traveled in desperation to Thailand for safety. I am writing to ask you to reassess the UNHCR Thailand’s processes and effectiveness in fairly granting refugee status to desperate Pakistan Christian refugees who have traveled to Thailand as a last resort to obtain human rights, dignity, and security for themselves and their families.
These Pakistan Christian refugees have sacrificed their homes, their livelihoods, their friends, and their neighbors – their entire lives in their home country – out of desperation, due to their persecution and oppression in Pakistan due to their religion.
There is widespread documentation and proof of such persecution of Pakistan Christian minorities, including by reports of the U.S. Council on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The USCIRF declared in its 2015 report on Pakistan (issued in July 2015) “that the U.S. government should designate Pakistan as a ‘country of particular concern,’ as required under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA).” The USCIRF has documented a “well-founded fear of persecution” of Pakistan Christians based on their religious human rights, and it has also documented “serious threats to life, physical integrity, and freedom” of Pakistan Christians. This is due to the rampant persecution of religious minorities, including Pakistan Christians and their human rights, as described in their report, which you can read at:
http://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/Pakistan%202015.pdf
In addition, the U.S. Department of State has recently reported on the oppression and persecution by Pakistan Christians, including use of the oppressive Pakistan “blasphemy law” to target Christians and minority religions by extremists who seek to bully such religious minorities.
In its October 2015 report, the U.S. Department of State has reported on Pakistan attacks by extremist mobs, such as a “mob of more than 3,000 persons burned some 100 Christian homes in Lahore’s Joseph Colony,” “the September 2013 bombing of Peshawar’s All Saints Church that killed at least 83 and injured more than 146,” and in November 2014 “in Kot Radha Kishan, Punjab, an estimated mob of 1,500 villagers accused a Christian couple of blasphemy and burned them alive in a brick kiln.” This official government report also describes their social disadvantages in education and every other facet of life, in Pakistan. These cases of persecution and violence against Christians are part of the official report of the U.S. Department of State, which you can see at:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/238716.pdf
In the UNHCR Resettlement Handbook, Chapter 6, Resettlement Submission Categories, Section 6.3.2, page 251, the UNHCR uses the definition of violence from the World Health Organization: “Violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”
I have seen from such official government reports that such cases of violence against Pakistan Christians (as you define in the UNHCR Resettlement Handbook) have been conducted by large mobs with dire and often fatal consequences. These are the types of threats of violence and death with Pakistan Christian refugees have fled from, and in desperation, driven them to flee to Thailand for sanctuary.
So I urge the UNHCR Thailand to fully and accurately assess the Pakistan societal threats of violence (and actual violence) against such Pakistan Christians who have been desperate enough to flee their homelands for Thailand. If the UNHCR Thailand does not fully and accurately assess such threats of violence against Pakistan Christian refugees seeking asylum, then the very mission of the UNHCR in refugee resettlement will be undermined.
I am disappointed that too often, I am seeing the results of Pakistan Christian refugees’ Refugee Status Determination (RSD) being denied by UNHCR Thailand for some administrative or trivial issue, which goes to the question of what should we expect from refugees? What should we expect from persecuted people, who are denied educational opportunities, and living in constant poverty and fear? Should we expect them to be brilliant and nimble debaters in interviews designed to probe for “inconsistencies,” rather than look with compassion and understanding at people who are literally running for their lives? Should we expect that the elderly, the sick, the exhausted, and the frightened will have perfect memories of every possible detail of every event in the lives they fled from?
It is unreasonable and unfair by anyone’s standards, and surely for an agency of compassion, such as the UNHCR, designed to support resettlement of the persecuted. Desperate Pakistan Christian refugees fleeing for safety should not then then be rejected by the very agency designed to protect their rights.
This has no place in the mission of the UNHCR.
I support the UNHCR’s mission, because I believe in the good work of the mission. My nation gives generously to the UNHCR as I also do as an individual to NGOs and other charity sources to support such refugees.
But when I give to support the UNHCR mission of protecting refugees, I do not do so for refugees to be ignored, rejected, and bullied. I give and support the UNHCR mission of protecting refugees, so that refugees will get the compassionate help and understanding that they need, in consideration of the desperate conditions under which they have fled their homeland.
I support this for Pakistan Christian refugees, but I don’t ask for this as any “special” treatment. I ask for the same treatment, the same courtesy, the same understanding, and the same human rights and dignity that I would expect any other refugee to receive.
I understand that the UNHCR has many cases to see and a limited staff. I recognize that is a challenge, which you have told the news media impacts your ability to expeditiously complete RSDs for Pakistan Christian refugees. However, the answer to this issue is in your own hands. There is no need to make the RSD process so protracted and so onerous in trying to probe for new arguments to deny asylum that it takes you years and years for each candidate. This is a problem of the UNHCR’s creation, and it is one you can solve, by taking a position of reasonable compassion and understanding in assessing these RSD applications, and using your judgment based on the knowledge you already have in interviewing such Pakistan Christian refugee applicants.
These Pakistan Christian refugee seekers clearly did not come to migrate to Thailand for no logical reason; the reasons for their fleeing from Pakistan are well documented by the USCIRF, by the U.S. State Department, by NGOs around the world, and by the news media on a near-daily basis. If the UNHCR Thailand chooses not to acknowledge all of this evidence of their conditions, then it is not only wasting the valuable funding of its donor nations in inefficiency, but it is also being unfair in its assessment of Pakistan Christian refugee applicants.
I urge you to re-evaluate your RSD processes and standards for such Pakistan Christian refugee applicants, so that I and the nation who my tax dollars funds, can (in good conscience) continue to fund the important work that the UNHCR has been put in place to perform. Remember, it is based on our shared commitment for the universal human rights and dignity for all, and our shared commitment for the rights of refugees, that the UNHCR’s important work is funded not just for these Pakistan Christian refugees, but also for refugees around the world. They and you should expect consistent, fair, and equitable standards to protect the rights, dignity, and security of all refugees.
Best Regards,